NOX sponsors Avowed - live

Avowed @ Souk Jara
Date: Friday, July 31, 2009
Time: 8:00pm - 10:00pm
Location: Souk Jara - Rainbow street
Jabal Amman - first circle
Doors open: 7pm
Opening act: Reef

Avowed Intentions
Emad Alaeddin is already pushing new frontiers in California – and he’s bringing the mix of emo rock and metal to Jordan
A full version of this article article appeared in NOX 32 – February 2009

“I don’t think he knows about my tattoos” laughs Emad Alaeddin, walking around the winding lanes off Amman’s Rainbow Street as he lists all the rock’n’roll excesses of which his father might not exactly approve. “and I always slick back my hair and take out my nose ring when I’m home. I mean he’s really cool and everything, but I don’t want to… you know… show any disrespect. He and my mom met in San Francisco in the 1960s, so I feel fairly sure they have an idea what I get up to in California, but I don’t want to go out of my way to antagonise him!”

Back home in Jordan again, for the first time since his LA-based band Avowed emerged from the seemingly bottomless morass of rock stars-in-waiting to release an accomplished debut album and harvest a hard core of committed fans, he can be forgiven for being self conscious about his attire. Jordanian rock stars, he has learned, still have Jordanian parents. “Well, I studied economics to appease my dad, but I think he always knew that I wanted music to be my career – and it seems my good grades got me off the hook,” he says. “But I’m sure the rest of my family wished I would get a proper job; it wasn’t that long ago that rock music here was associated with Satan worship! But at least I hardly drink these days – although that’s mainly to protect my voice.”

The crunchy guitars, unorthodox riffs and throaty vocals serve up a soulful rock that triangulates the mainstream bombast of Nickleback, the post-grunge melodies of Bush and the razor guitar work of Staind – and the combination has propelled the band to local cult heroes in their adopted hometown. “I would say that the three albums that give Avowed our DNA,” Emad says, when asked, “are Alice in Chains’ Dirt, Foo Fighters’ debut album and, well, the guys are going to kill me about this one, but Michael Jackson’s Bad. Yep. That’s definitely in there, can’t deny it.”

Contrast, or at least incongruity, is something that seems to have defined Emad’s life to date: growing up with one radio station in 1980s Jordan and now playing concerts to tens of thousands of Americans over the internet; growing up with George Michael, maturing with the complex harmonies of Alice in Chains; studying economics in Virginia, moving to Los Angeles to become a musician the second he graduated; loving the anonymity of California, missing the certainties and cultural understanding of home. He even doubles his time as a rock’n’roll frontman with a job at a Los Angeles branch of Citibank.

Perhaps the biggest contrast of all, though, was at the very genesis of Avowed, when he was trying to find a guitarist for his rock band in the aftermath of September 11th. “Back in college, everyone was very interested in the whole Arab thing, and wanted to know more about it,” he says, now walking past graffiti proclaiming the merits of Jordan’s leading football club, Al Faisaly. “When I moved to LA in the summer of 2001, it was the same, with people calling up and asking where my name was from and saying, ‘Oh he’s Arab, that’s cool, that could be interesting…’ Literally a month later, September 11 happened, and it all changed.
“I kind of laid low for a little while, waited it out, and pretty quickly any hatred became curiosity. And I realised that it was better to be upfront about being an Arab instead of trying to conceal it, and then have everyone think I’ve got something to hide and assume I’m a terrorist or something. Time heals everything, I guess, and we were just like, f**k it, why hide it? People are going to find out anyway…”

Conversely, in Amman, the packs of pre-teen kids who are now staring at the curly-haired, goatee-bearded 30-year-old as we try to find somewhere for a cliché-free-but-still-locally-relevant portrait, have no idea he is even from this planet, never mind from these very streets. His other-worldly appearance, filling up an iron gate or overlooking the stone-coloured folds of Downtown Amman, merits an avalanche of hellos in English, and even his Jordan-accented Arabic responses merely prompt a renewed flurry of TV English. He immediately expresses reservations about his forthcoming interview on the Arabic radio station Sawt al-Ghad.
Meeting later before his sold-out show in the art gallery-cum-restaurant Canvas, he relates the story of a horrible half hour, trying to navigate his way through a conversation with someone who wouldn’t know AC/DC from Ace of Bass, before completely messing up blending a CD of Amr Diab’s “Tamalli Ma’ak” with Emad’s own live, unaccompanied version – which was in a totally different key. “Thankfully, I went straight into ‘Arabic Girl’ and the phones went off the hook! I’m grateful people had bothered to keep listening.”

Avowed, though, is more than a vehicle for an Arab voice in America. The Arab element – via Emad, lead singer, rhythm guitarist and principal songwriter – is real, but it’s no gimmick; there are three other musicians in this for their own rock’n’roll reasons – and none of them involve Umm Kulthoum. Co-songwriter and lead guitarist is Jesse DeSanto, with Erik Kreft on drums and percussion and Nick LeRoux on the bass. All recruited from the LA music scene, they come with their own influences and ambitions. It’s Emad and Jesse’s relationship that is pivotal in providing the Avowed sound.
“I’d put up a flier asking for a guitarist, and after about six months of false starts, Jesse calls me up, comes by the garage and from the very first note we played, we knew we had something,” says Emad. “At first, it was me bringing all the songs to the band, but eventually he started coming forward with ideas – and he comes from a hardcore Dream Theater and Pantera background – and introduced a new outlook of songwriting to me. It was offbeat, experimental and sometimes completely crazy, but it really gave us more dimensions.”

In the early days, the band was known as Third Wish, and they released three albums that they were far from satisfied with. Only since they changed their name to Avowed, and recruited Bullets and Octane bassist Brent Clawson to produce their album (he’s also worked with The Knives), have they a sound and an approach that they can call their own. “There’s always a tug of war between me and Jesse, but it’s free from egos,” Emad says. “We respect each other’s talents and ideas, and it’s all to search for this middle point that is Avowed.
“Like, he’d bring me a series of chord progressions for a song, and they would be so unorthodox that I’d wonder how I could ever sing along with them. But you learn to swallow your scepticism and give it your best, and eventually the melodies come together. ‘Make It Right’ is a great example of that.”

Of course, the Arabness isn’t completely buried. In early songs, Emad would add vocal flourishes not dissimilar to a muezzin, and there are certainly chord progressions with an Eastern flavour. He also admits to bringing tapes of classic Arab singers to rehearsal. “I call it torture time! But I guess they’re at least beginning to understand it, and they’re definitely looking forward to coming here in the summer and learning a lot more about where I’m from – and they better believe I am going to insist on playing a few Arab covers!”

The one thing they might have to work on, though, is that groupie thing. It may be some time before Almost Famous is remade in Jordan. But Emad is making a start on recreating the LA vibe in West Amman with his new pad in Dabooq, which he says he is going to “MTV Crib the f**k out of” when he moves in. “We all live in the same house in Cali, and we reward our street team (the girls who put out the fliers, go on the blogs and tell their friends about us) by inviting them over for private shows. I’d love to have that in Amman, where rock kids can hang out, play and express themselves. Okay, I might have to give up smoking, but I’d trade smoking for being a positive influence. I can’t wait to get back, man!”